When your network slows down, taking advantage of network intelligence can be a more effective and affordable solution.

Nowadays, more small businesses have a converged network running three types of traffic simultaneously—voice, video, and data. Delay-sensitive and real-time applications such as voice and voice applications have different characteristics and requirements from those of traditional data applications. Because they are real-time-based, voice and video applications will only tolerate a small amount of delay affecting delivery. Voice and video traffic will also only accept a small amount of network error and jitter, both of which degrade the quality of the transmission delivered to the end user. To effectively transport voice and video traffic over a network, mechanisms are required that ensure reliable delivery of packets with low latency. In addition, more and more companies are running automated backups during regular work hours, so converged network can easily get bogged down, resulting in slow and spotty performance. A simple and easy solution may be to add more bandwidth, but that isn’t always the best fix. Instead, network intelligence features in your switch can improve network performance more effectively and affordably.

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